Deadline is reporting that Ridley Scott is moving ahead with the long-discussed sequel to his 2000 Best Picture winner Gladiator, with the filmmaker tapping Peter Craig (The Town) to work on a script.
The original Gladiator starred Russell Crowe as Maximus, a Roman General who is betrayed by Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the son of the Emperor, who murders his father and seizes the throne. With his family murdered, Maximus is reduced to slavery, and is forced to enter the coliseum where he rises through the ranks as he plots his revenge.
A sequel to Gladiator was first mentioned in 2001; originally, it was to have taken place 15 years after the original film until Russell Crowe expressed his interest in returning as Maximus, despite the character’s death in the first movie. Nick Cave was subsequently brought on board to write a script which would have seen Maximus reincarnated as an immortal who defends early Christians from the Romans before being transported through other periods in history including World War II and Vietnam before ending up as a general in the modern-day Pentagon.
In 2017, Scott revealed that he had come up with a way of bringing Maximus back, and that he was looking to convince Crowe to reprise his role.
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